How secure is your dating profile?

Love may be a game of chance, but you shouldn’t gamble with your personal information.

Keep your dating profile secure with these tips to protect your personal information, and stop hackers from making you unlucky in love.

Strong passwords

The strength of your dating app passwords should be as strong as your pick-up game, or at least as strong as your online banking passwords. Dating apps are now a common way for people to connect, creating another opportunity for hackers to mine your personal information.

While some banks and email accounts offer a two-factor authentication process, it is not as common on dating sites which makes accounts with weak or poorly-secured passwords more vulnerable. Always use different passwords for different accounts, and ensure they have a random combination of numbers, letters and punctuation and are at least eight characters long.

Device security

You may think you’re swiping away comfortably behind a screen, but the internet is full of more creepers than your local bar. To keep your dating profile secure, avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi when using dating apps. Before you jump on the Tinder train make sure you’re using your mobile data or trusted Wi-Fi connections and that your device has anti-virus security.

Profile audit

Many dating applications use your Facebook account to build your profile. For those who want to maintain a degree of privacy when dating online, you can review which information is automatically displayed:

Popular dating apps Bumble and Tinder allow you to change your educational status, job title and photos

Tinder features extra profile controls such as the option to hide your age and your distance

If you’re a Hinge user, you can edit your first name and opt out of adding your last name

Tinder and Bumble users will find it difficult to change their display names unless they created their profile using a phone number, not a Facebook account

Oversharing personal information on dating app profiles can leave you vulnerable to discovery on other online platforms. Oversharing can also result in personal and professional reputational damage or identity fraud. Keep certain information private until you are comfortable with the person you are talking to.